Classic Poem

Hope was but a timid friend;
She sat without my grated den,*
Watching how my fate would tend,
Even as selfish-hearted men.

She was cruel in her fear;
Through the bars, one dreary day,
I looked out to see her there,
And she turned her face away!

Like a false guard, false watch keeping,
Still, in strife, she whispered peace;
She would sing while I was weeping;
When1 I listened, she would cease.*

False she was, and unrelenting;
When my last joys strewed the ground,
Even Sorrow saw, repenting,
Those sad relics scattered round;

Hope — whose whisper would have given
Balm to all that frenzied pain — *
Stretched her wings and soared to heaven;
Went — and ne'er returned again!1 Or " if. "